As part of our dining hall renovations we have decided it is time for some new decorating items. Some of the items that have been on display are well over 25 years old and it was time for something different and fresh. We are also attempting to focus our attention on a nautical theme, one of our most significant assets is Green Lake, and we need to emphasize that. With that in mind, I have taken an old aluminum sail boat mast and have installed it vertically in the corner of the dining room. It stands about 22 feet tall and the boom is 16 feet long. The boom now extends across the upper edge of the kitchen serving window. In this arrangement I have an opportunity to hang a sail that is roughly 16 feet wide and 12 feet tall. Now, I could find some old sail, either in our collection or off the internet, but that would be too easy.
The next phase of the project is to facilitate the creation of a quilt that will hang in place of the sail. It is my hope that the quilt will not only reflect the sailing opportunities here at Daycholah Center, but it will also represent the amazing work of our quilting community. (A third objective is to decrease the sound vibrations that currently bounce around near the ceiling.) This quilting project is going to take some time. I need to solidify the design first, and that remains in the conceptual, artistic stage right now. In the meantime, I have hung a blue tarp from Ace Hardware where the quilt will some day reside.
The tarp gives a shape to the project and it is my hope that it enables more people to envision and dream about what it might look like in the future. Interestingly enough, the tarp has creases and folds in it from its original packaging. More than one person has commented that if you squint a little bit, the tarp begins to look like a quilt.
It has dawned on me that maybe the blue tarp represents more than a quilt here at Daycholah Center. There have been some significant changes here at Daycholah Center in the past six months and there will inevitably be more changes to come. Some of those changes are complete and some of them have only just begun. As the Managing Director, I have some clear visions and some of my ideas need a little squinting in order to see how things could be some day. I could claim that maybe I have hung multiple blue tarps in the last couple of weeks. I invite you to stop on by and help me squint at my tarps, help me transform them into clear visions which will do a whole lot more than spruce up the décor of our dining hall.
~ Rev. Nathan Athorp